How ‘Alien’ Spawned So Many Others

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Ridley Scott’s film “Alien” gave audiences one of the scariest space monsters in movie history. Here’s a look at how the 1979 film has influenced the genre.Published OnMay 4, 2017CreditCredit20th Century Fox

It has been 38 years since a terrifying alien burst from the chest of John Hurt in one of cinema’s most unforgettable scenes. And ever since, that creature — from the 1979 sci-fi scarefest “Alien,” about crew members of a spacecraft and the voracious organism they bring aboard — has continued to make its mark on the big screen. It’s now back in its old chomping grounds in “Alien: Covenant” (May 19), a prequel to the original.

Also back is the original film’s director, Ridley Scott. Why is he returning after various sequels and so many “Alien”-inspired films?

“I was frustrated by the fact that the ones that followed never once asked the question: Who would make this, and for what reason?” he said by phone recently, referring to the deadly beings. “So I went back to Fox saying, ‘Listen, I think I have a solution to resurrect the old dog pretty well.’”

The resurrection began in 2012 with the first prequel, “Prometheus,” which reflected much of the atmosphere of the earlier film, if not as much of the alien. “Covenant” has even more in common with the original film, and it, along with a handful of other movies throughout the years, shows just what an influence “Alien” has been.

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Something’s happening here: A scene from the original 1979 “Alien.”Credit20th Century Fox

Perfecting Pick-Off Moves

Even with its high-tech visual effects and intricate sets, “Alien” is fundamentally a horror movie about crew members getting picked off one by one.

Mr. Scott said that when he first read the “Alien” script, by Dan O’Bannon, “it was frankly what I would call a very well-written B-movie. And we carried it out in an ‘A’ way with a terrific cast and a fantastic monster.”

Those B-movie undertones were what emerged in the low-budget “Alien” knockoffs that came after, like “Galaxy of Terror” (from 1981, and perhaps best known for a sexual assault committed by a giant worm) and “Dark Universe” (1993), which features Joe Estevez and a poorly made monster.

The horror-in-space premise has also been executed with more creativity and bigger budgets. There were “Event Horizon” (1997), in which the crew, including Laurence Fishburne, was tormented by hallucinations and “Doom” (with Dwayne Johnson), from 2005, in which the crew was done in by mutated Martians.

Mars and attacks also factored this year into “Life,” in which crew members like Ryan Reynolds were taken down by an organism they found on the red planet. And the horror-space concept converged in a more outrageous way in “Jason X,” the 2001 entry in the “Friday the 13th” franchise that sent that film’s title killer into space along with androids.

The Space Heroine

Horror films thrive on the concept of the “final girl,” the last one left standing to fend off the maniacal killer. But Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in the “Alien” films made the transition from survivor to full-blown sci-fi action hero. She paved the way for other leading women in space, from Jodie Foster in “Contact” to Sandra Bullock in “Gravity.” Within the “Alien” universe, Noomi Rapace took the heroic reins in “Prometheus,” and Katherine Waterston flexes her muscles in “Alien: Covenant.” One of her alien battles bears a striking resemblance to a Ripley encounter.

The Darkness

Yes, these films take place in outer space, so light is minimal. But “Alien” made distinct use of darkness, hiding its monster in the ship’s bowels, down dim corridors and inside caves. The original poster for “Alien” made the darkness a selling point, with a cracked egglike figure oozing green on a black background and the frightening tag line: “In space no one can hear you scream.” Much of “Alien: Covenant” is on the lowlight spectrum, too, with no way to know just where, or how many, threats lurk. Another film with “Alien” DNA referenced the darkness motif outright: “Pitch Black,” from (2000), which starred a rising Vin Diesel. After crashing, the passengers of a ship find themselves stranded on a planet full of E.T.s that attack in the dark. When an eclipse comes, so does terror.

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Nice tentacles: A scene from “Alien: Covenant.”Credit20th Century Fox

The Creature

If the movie’s going to be called “Alien,” it helps if the title character looks impressive. That was the case with the small gooey thing we first see springing from John Hurt’s chest, which eventually grew into the long-headed, toothy nightmare that has haunted many a viewer. The artist H.R. Giger was brought in to design the alien, playing off his work that combined images of humans, otherworldly beings and biomechanics. What he conceived had a distinctive look that advanced the movie into smarter, more serious territory. But it was also a force to be reckoned with. The film gave way to other creative, angry aliens like the Predator from “Predator,” a scaly braids-wearing menace that would fight its way into the “Alien” franchise in 2004, with “Alien vs. Predator.”

In “Alien: Covenant,” audiences will get to see a number of design directions the creature could go in, once they discover its origins. And this time, rather than surging from someone’s chest, the wily ones burst from their victims’ backs.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page AR42 of the New York edition with the headline: How ‘Alien’ Spawned So Many Others. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe